Sinn Féin leader Gerry Adams has called on the government to "demand" the closure of Sellafield after a BBC investigation revealed shocking safety breaches at the Cumbria nuclear plant.

His call follows a Panorama report which uncovered that radioactive materials have been stored in degrading plastic bottles at the UK's most nuclear site.

The probe also found parts of the Sellafield facility have too few staff to operate safely, and that parts of it are "dangerously" rundown.

The Cumbria site is just 170km from Ireland and Mr Adams claimed we're in the front line of any threat posed by a nuclear disaster.

He said: "Sinn Féin has repeatedly called on the Irish government to mount a campaign to have it closed and to oppose the construction of other nuclear plants across the Irish Sea.

“In 2011 this was the first issue I raised at Leaders Questions with Taoiseach Enda Kenny following the general election.

"In the previous months there had been another in a long list of contamination incidents at the British plant and two earthquakes had occurred in the north of England, including a 3.6 magnitude earthquake in Cumbria.

“The BBC report revealed that between July 2012 and July 2013, there were 97 incidents where there too few workers available.

“These and the concerns raised in the BBC programme show that Sellafield presents a direct threat to the health and safety of staff and of communities.

“(The government) should mount a vigorous campaign to demand that Sellafield be closed.”

A whistle-blower - a former senior manager at the facility - prompted the investigation after saying he was worried by conditions.

He explained his biggest fear is a fire breaking out at the facility.

He said: "If there is a fire there it could generate a plume of radiological waste that will go across Western Europe."

The programme found that liquid containing plutonium and uranium has been kept in thousands of plastic bottles for a number of years, despite the bottles only intended for temporary storage.

And some of them are now degrading.

The investigation found there are still more than 2,000 bottles containing plutonium and uranium on the site, despite Sellafield working to remove them.

The whistleblower claimed that the site often didn't have enough staff on duty to meet minimum safety levels.

Figures seen by the BBC show that between July 2012 and July 2013, there were 97 incidents where parts of the site had too few workers on shift.

Dr Rex Strong, head of nuclear safety at Sellafield, denied the site operating under these levels was dangerous.

He said: "You make alternative arrangements, so the things that have to be done get done. Facilities are shut down if we're not able to operate them in the way that we want to."